Drop a line through the middle of the "8" and spin the number around on this axis.

My office (at work) consists of a poor, overburdened desk, an older four-drawer wooden file cabinet (also burdened with papers), and a small bookcase upon which my computer (and more papers) sits. On the wall are framed diplomas and other pieces of amusement, including a rubbing of Shakespeare's epitath and an icon of Michael the Archangel. I have a six-shot, single action, nerf gun in a desk drawer; it was given to me by my staff as a birthday present and it provides amusement for children. My office is L-shaped; down the other leg of the L are kept what we laughingly call "the archives", which include the police records from 1916 to 1991.

There are no weapons there; they are not needed. I can dominate by sheer force of will, as a young man (18) found out today -- and then I lightened up when he apologized to my staff for calling them nasty names. I was supposed to be intimidated when he said, "I'm going to get a f-----g lawyer" but I said, "Go ahead...and watch your language." He was also put off-balance when he said, "But what do I tell my friends?" and I replied immediately "That's not my problem." To get the full impact of this (which I admit was acting on my part) imagine trying explain to John Wayne, playing a Marine Corps Drill Instructor, why your rifle isn't yet white-glove clean.

As for my staff being stifled by me -- today they convinced me not to bar said young man from the building for six months, told me that we were going to get a new on-line service, and in general tell me to go to hell on regular basis (when they aren't doing something themselves and will let me know what was decided later. Remember, last July 13 I walked DOWNRANGE, unarmed, with six of my supervisors, armed with pistols, behind me.

I can just see him, there in his office, pounding furiously on the keyboard set atop the rich mahogany desk, the top of which is artfully strewn with nearly everything found for a desk assessory in Levenger's.

There is a sign hanging on the doorknob warning those who might dare distract him from his important and overburdening work of running the best little library in Pocatello, Pocetellico, Portico, Portly Cello, or whatever the name of that little burg is. It says, "Enter at Your Own Risk."

His staff takes that sign seriously. Last summer he ran a library intern through with one of that forbidding collection of swords he keeps at the ready on a rack by the wall.

He thinks they think he is in there hard at work, administrating away on library matters.

They keep their mouths shut about what they know. They need their jobs.

Please explain how 27872 is a "horizontal spinner". How is that different from a pinwheel? It must be different from a pinwheel because it certainly is not a pinwheel. The next pinwheel number on the MOAB will be 60009. Is "horizontal spinner" some sort of Rapairian conceit that only trumpet players can grasp?

Just think: earthworms are hermaphrodites: They have 2 pairs of testes, surrounded by 2 pairs of testes sacs. There are 2 pairs of seminal vesicles which produce, store and release the sperm via the male pores, and ovaries and ovipores that release eggs via female pores. However, most also have one or more pairs of spermathecae (depending on the species) that are internal sacs which receive and store sperm from the other worm in copulation. Some species use external spermatophores for transfer instead.

The male reproductive organs consist of two pairs of testes, present ventro-laterally in the 10th and 11th segments. Each testis is made up of 4 to 8 processes containing spermatogonia. Each testis is enclosed in a pair of testes sacs which are filled with fluid. It is bilobed in the front and on the posterior side provided with a pair of ciliated spermaducal funnels, one on either side. Two pairs of seminal vesicles are present in the 11th and 12th segments which collect the sperm fluid. The testes sac of the tenth segment opens in the seminal vesicle of the 11th segment and testis sac of the 11th segment opens into the seminal vesicle of the 12th segment.

The sperm mother cells of the testes when shed offreach the seminal vesicle where they mature into sperms and then again passed into testes. Sperms from the testes are passed into the spermiducal funnels which lead into vas deferens. A pair of vasa deferentia on either side of nerve cord runs from the 12th segment to prostate region and opens out together with the prostate duct in the 18th segment as male genital aperture. The prostate is a large irregular gland present from the 16th to 20th or the 17th to 21st segments on either side, and it produces the prostate fluid. In the 17th and 19th segments each is found a pair of rounded, white fluffy masses, the accossory glands. These glands are present on ventro-lateral bodywall, one on either side of the nerve cord. They open to the exterior by a number of ducts in two pairs of genital pappillae, situated externally on either side of the mid-ventral line.

The female reproductive organs consist of a pair of ovaries, a pair of oviducts and four pairs of spermathecae.The ovaries are a pair of small, whitish, lobed structures, attached to the hinder face of the septum of the 12/13 segment, one on each side of the nerve cord.Each ovary has mature ova towards distal end and immature towards septal side.Each oviducal funnel leads into oviduct which opens outside in the 14th segment in the form of a common oviducal aperture.The four pairs of spermathecae are found on either side of the nerve cord in the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th segments.Each spermathecae has two parts, a sac like structure, ampulla and a short diverticulum.The diverticulum stores the sperms while ampulla provides a nourishing fluid to them.These spermathecae open outside the bodyby four pairs of apertures one on either ventro-lateral sides of each segmental joint, i.e a pair in the 5-6, 6-7, 7-8, 8-9th segments.The mature ova shed from the ovaries, pass through the oviducal funnels into the oviduct and finally to the exterior through the female genital pore. Copulation and reproduction are separate processes in earthworms. The mating pair overlap front ends ventrally and each exchanges sperm with the other. The clitellum becomes very reddish to pinkish in color. The cocoon, or egg case, is secreted by the clitellum band which is near the front of the worm, but behind the spermathecae. Some time after copulation, long after the worms have separated, the clitellum secretes the cocoon which forms a ring around the worm. The worm then backs out of the ring, and as it does so, injects its own eggs and the other worm's sperm into it. As the worm slips out, the ends of the cocoon seal to form a vaguely lemon-shaped incubator (cocoon) in which the embryonic worms develop. They emerge as small, but fully formed earthworms, except for a lack of the sex structures, which develop later in about 60 to 90 days. They attain full size in about one year. Several common earthworm species are mostly parthenogenetic, that is, with asexual reproduction resulting in clones.

Horseshit. Minds me of why the grass is so green and thick at the back of my yard. Bought this house next to the house I grew up in. I recall spreading and turning horseshit in the garden when I was a lad. And, the guy that owned this house didn't buy the good stuff. He bought the fresh stuff... with the big green flies hatching with every fork full.

Well... Actually it's only 280# for $10.00. I forgot it comes on 40# bags, not 50#. But, yes, we can catch "compost with cow manure" on sale at the right time (like spring planting season) for $1.39 a bag at the home center stores. It's not the GOOD stuff like Black Kow, but it's also not Black Kow's price of $4.50 a bag. And it may only be 5% cow manure and 95% dirt for all I know. I don't care any more. I have a good source for free horse manure now. I still buy some Black Hen (Black Kow's chicken derived compatriot) for an extra nitrogen boost if needed. I don't know any chicken farmers.

If Rapaire is out of print, maybe Max can obtain the publishing rights for $1.00, contract with some cut-rate printer in Thailand to have copies produced at a net cost of 25˘ each, and sell them to other Mudcatters for $10.00 a pop....

Aw, nevermind... Who'd pay $10.00 for a copy of Rapaire? Heck, you can get 350 pounds (seven 50# bags) of cow manure for $10.00 at Home Depot and you don't even have to wait for it to finish composting!

I think the semantic equivalence between "self" and "body" may be the fundamental bug in your system, there, old pal. There are a good many important differences. WHile the two are important system components and may be concatenated, they should not be confabulated.

Considering that the Republicans have inhabited San Diego from before the last Ice Age to the present I think that Amos would have first-hand knowledge of that.

I, myself, me, am apolitical. I work only for the Greatest Good For the Greatest Number, as my hero Jeremy Bentham taught. If I grow up I want to be just like him -- stuffed and kept in a cabinet at University College London. That's because the nuns who taught me in grade school said that my body was a Pure Temple and I could give no higher gift than myself and so I should "save myself for marriage" but I asked my wife and she said she doesn't want me around after I die (if I do).

Well, when all other possibilities are ruled out, consider the improbable.

Or consider creating a better memory. You could have that most paradoxical of elements, a solipsist's memory bank, complete with a full record of all the creations of everyone and everything that bothers you. What power!! As any Republican knows, it is much more interesting, sportsmanlike and valuable to modify the pictures recording an event than to try and manage the event itself.

And this year's Academey "Astaire Award" for the most impressive tap-dancing for no good reason goes to.....the envelope, please...(loud ripping sound)....that was NOT me, folks. I think it was the librarian...

Sometimes that's the only person who will offer an intelligent answer.

But it is, I think, both telling and appropriate that the Mother Of BS is the one place where we should raise seriously the question of how real we-all truly are, and to whom, and in what way.

To a large degree this is the Key Question and the guiding Pole Star behind all our discussion: is we I? Or is I we? Or both? The desire to know how this works is surely the generating force behind all True BS.